News From the Control Tower - 6/3/2021

News from the Control Tower: Our weekly curated list of news stories affecting you and your finances.

This week’s reads include:

1.       Before She Was C.E.O., She Cleaned Toilets. ‘How Wonderful Is That?’

An interesting interview with the CEO of Land O’Lakes, Beth Ford, where she discusses the benefits of a cooperative business model, and the current outlook for agriculture.

2.       The human factor — why data is not enough to understand the world

Companies are turning to anthropology to balance the insights of algorithms and AI

3.       The Economic Recovery Is Here. It’s Unlike Anything You’ve Seen.

Households saved cash and banks amassed capital, but supply shortages are popping up and some employers can’t find workers

4.       JBS cyberattack: From gas to meat, hackers are hitting the nation, and consumers, where it hurts

The recent targeted attacks on critical infrastructure controlled by private enterprise are a strategic ploy by hackers to hit companies at key points in supply chains and more effectively leverage ransom demands, and there are consequences in commodities and consumer markets.

5.       What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed

The destruction of property is only one piece of the financial devastation that the massacre wrought. Much bigger is a sobering kind of inheritance: the incalculable and enduring loss of what could have been, and the generational wealth that might have shaped and secured the fortunes of Black children and grandchildren.

Bonus: A pandemic hobby that didn’t quite work out

I have birding enemies

After a year of being harassed by condescending bird nerds, I was out for blood — or at least one stupid warbler — at the Mass Audubon Bird-a-thon